


The Hardest Choices to Make

by Supreme Zarc (tatersalad5001)



Series: Yu-Gi-Oh! Analyses [2]
Category: Yu-Gi-Oh! Zexal
Genre: Archived From Tumblr, Archived From datanamines Blog, Cross-Posted on Tumblr, Gen, Meta Essay, Nonfiction
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-04
Updated: 2018-12-04
Packaged: 2019-09-06 22:03:03
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 6,445
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16841278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tatersalad5001/pseuds/Supreme%20Zarc
Summary: Zexal analyses, primarily surrounding Shark and Astral





	1. Astral & Yuma - Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> bringing these over from tumblr. thought it'd be convenient to have these all gathered in one place. you can find me on tumblr as datanamines
> 
> this one's surrounding astral, focusing on his relationship with yuma, especially after astral discovered yuma hid that he knew vector was a barian from him. i wrote this specifically during that one duel where astral's the one dueling and number uh 96? and vector? are there, yeah

astral has stated multiple times that he still has faith in yuma and yuma’s approach to life and dueling, and he’s still more than willing to work with yuma and help him duel and succeed. and while the issue may have seemed to be ‘dropped’ for now, and neither yuma nor astral seem particularly willing to touch the subject in conversation with each other at this moment, astral has stated multiple times he _does not trust yuma_. they work together well still, they’re still a great team, but what they have right now feels like mostly a tense truce.

i can give them that there’s a lot of important shit going on right now, but they haven’t discussed non-important shit that much. astral isn’t talking quite as much shit, yuma’s not telling astral to fuck off so much. they’re not really poking at each other playfully, and it feels like there’s a chance that if they tried it could make things worse.

vector has mentioned that astral can’t escape the darkness now within him. number 96 has stated he knows astral will need his help and power again in the future.

we’ve not had a plot like this very often in yugioh. usually when yugioh protagonists end up becoming evil or make choices that hurt everyone badly, their friends and those closest to them continue to stand by them and trust them, knowing they can get past it, knowing they don’t have bad intentions, knowing that the good in them will win out eventually. friendship is a very strong, constant factor in yugioh that doesn’t waver easily, and when it does, it’s usually due to outside factors, such as possession or enhancing certain emotions. and usually if a bond between two characters is fractured, it can be repaired. i’m sure astral and yuma will reconcile and become better friends than ever for it. still, it’s interesting to see an instance in yugioh where someone fucks up badly and hurts someone else, and the other person can’t find it in themself to forget and forget. where someone’s actions actually cause a deep divide between themself and their friend. sometimes shit just can’t be glossed over right away, sometimes people need time to heal and reevaluate. we’re only, well, “human”.

and like, honestly, astral has every right to be pissed. of course yuma never meant for things to happen the way they did and i’m sure astral knows that but damn shit really blew up for him regardless. yuma put a lot of trust in one of astral’s greatest enemies! yuma kept a lot of shit secret! he did it because he thought it would protect astral, especially in a time where astral seemed to be constantly getting weakened, but shit that would still hurt! if i were astral i’d be pissed over it too! fuck! this is some good subplot!


	2. Shark - Are We Humans? Are We Barians?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> analyzing shark's decision to align himself with the barians over yuma and friends

shark at the beginning of this series was at such a low point, man. his sister was in the hospital; sent there because of quattro who did everything because of vetrix who did everything because of dr faker who did everything because of hart and barian world. he tried to join a tournament to help her and was set up to be disqualified for the same reasons. their parents died in a car accident. he really had nothing going for him, no one there, so he just kinda. lashed out. still a huge dick. i still hate that fuck. but it probably just. felt like the only thing he could do. everything probably felt like it was falling apart, he probably didn’t feel like he could do anything right. 

we’ve seen deep down that yuma’s incredibly terrified, doesn’t believe in himself, and that without the support of others and his own mantra running constantly through his head, he just withers up, shuts down, gives up on himself. shark doesn’t have that support, doesn’t have words like that to live by, so he’s already given up on himself, and rather than shutting down, he lashes out at anything and everything. yuma included. so when yuma declares his intentions in being friends, shark pushes him out, lashes out. nothing else has ever worked out for him so far, so when yuma comes along wanting to be friends, why would shark think that would? it’s doomed to failure like everything else. he’s protecting himself by not trying, not letting himself hope.

but shark is dynamic. yuma becomes the support he lacks. yuma’s mantra gives him an unbeatable spirit that literally makes him unbeatable, and that drives shark to keep going, keep trying, to get better. when shark thinks he’s beat, yuma tells him to try anyway, and shark does, and he wins, and it works out. this is working out. and then there’s a point where yuma can’t reach out to astral, where yuma feels alone, and when he’s alone he feels incapable, and shark watches this. he’s forced to watch this, they’re literally sharing a hospital room. shark watches yuma falling down into the spiral that he spent so long living in, and he can’t take it. that’s not the path for yuma. shark wouldn’t wish that path on anyone, especially someone who’s done so much for him, who means so much to him by now. so shark literally snaps him out of it. astral is gone and yuma feels alone and shark becomes the support that yuma has been for him for so long.

don’t get me wrong. shark regains his confidence, starts letting people in again, and reaches out. but ultimately, shark is very grounded in himself. he is driven primarily by himself, his own goals. he lets yuma inspire him but only _fights for_ yuma on a few occasions; often times their goals just happen to align. shark states multiple times that he “only duels for (him)self” and it’s true. he has friends, lets friends in, but he spends so long fighting for revenge. at first it’s against quattro, because of what quattro did. but then he learned quattro only did what vetrix wanted him to do, so he fights against vetrix. but then he learned vetrix did everything to get revenge on dr. faker. so he fights against dr. faker. but then he learns dr. faker was doing everything on orders from barian world in order to save his son hart. hart’s a child who really didn’t do anything so shark of course doesn’t move on to him. he moves onto barian world. and barian world is just…doing everything to destroy. and they stick around and remain a threat. so when shark hears barians are around, he keeps fighting them. even when his reputation isn’t so bad anymore, even when his sister recovers, he still fights to get revenge against barian world.

but then….it’s not so black and white anymore. in his quest for revenge shark learns that he had this past life, where _he_ was the very thing he was fighting against now. he watches these memories where he’s some kind of _emperor_ ruling with his sister, where his sister gives her life for these people, where his own actions squandered that and lead these people to their deaths, even though everything he did was to prevent just that. he learns their souls went to barian world, they became barians, and he became their leader to try to make up for what he did. and learning this, he’s forced into this impossible choice. will he stick by his friends and fight with them to destroy the people that did so much to hurt him? or will he become the leader he once was, and try to make up for his own mistakes?

this isn’t a choice he makes immediately, he struggles for so long with what he’s learned. rio ends up in the hospital again and he barely leaves her side. during this time, astral disappears, and yuma is alone. it’s a repeat of before, almost, only astral is gone for longer, no one knows where he is this time, and well, there isn’t a literally hospital staff forcing shark to be around yuma. yuma starts spiraling down again, he’s stuck deep in denial. he isolates himself, doesn’t believe in himself anymore. only this time, shark isn’t watching and he doesn’t care to, he says as much to yuma’s friends. he may have helped yuma before, but this time it’s not coming from him. he’s wrestling with his own memories and with choices he doesn’t yet entirely understand, and he doesn’t know how that’ll affect his friendship with….everyone, anyone. he’s rooted deep in his own doubts again, pushes everyone out, and lets someone else pick up yuma’s pieces. shark has his own stuff, and being around yuma won’t help him, especially when yuma’s about as confused and hurt as he is at the moment.

he’s forced into this impossible choice. will he stick by his friends and fight with them to destroy the people that did so much to hurt him? or will he become the leader he once was, and try to make up for his own mistakes? will he pick his past, or his present?

it’s a choice brought up again and again throughout zexal. characters are constantly making this choice, between their past and their present. astral makes this choice multiple times and almost always chooses his present. yuma is quite literally given the choice to forget his past by heartland and walk away without all this pain he’s holding onto, and yuma chooses his present, to hold onto that. trey brings this up when he talks about how he does everything in the hope that his family will become like they were before, choosing his past until his family makes amends and they work together towards the future. quattro and quinton choose their past as well, longing for the father they once had instead of the corrupted child that came back in his place. vetrix chooses his past, he’s literally unable to see anything but revenge against dr. faker. but again, the arclights make amends, begin fighting for their future. kite and dr. faker in doing everything to help hart choose their past, but as kite moves on and starts doing what he wants to do, chooses his present. over and over we see these choices being made, and the message is clear: it doesn’t matter what you did before as long as you try to do what’s right now. the past is gone and the future is uncertain, all you have is now so live in it and keep fighting for it.

and then we’re brought back to shark. he’s made these choices before, and usually stays firmly between either answer. he allows himself to change, allows himself to make friends, fighting for his own present, but his goals are rooted firmly in events from the past. he has support now, he’s happier, yet he continues to lash out. he’s between these two paths constantly, and as the stakes rise for each path and shark learns who he really is, it becomes clear who he is.

astral world or barian world? who should get to live? who should be destroyed? surely, you protest, there must be some third option. certainly yuma will reach that point if he hasn’t yet already.

shark, however, is out of loopholes and out of excuses. he’s just finished running the marathon that is his past life. back then, he was stuck between letting vector win the war and risking his people’s lives. shark finds a third option: fight this war purely between vector and himself, leave everyone else out of it, and no one can get hurt except himself. but he underestimates his own people’s love and devotion to him, and he underestimates vector’s trickery, and though he’s won the war, everyone that fought for him lays dead around him, and he has no one else but himself to blame. clearly, finding a loop hole, a third option, will not work. 

shark is tired of everything falling apart around him. shark is tired of causing problems and messing everything up. and now, he’s out of time, too.

barian world or astral world? the past or the present? revenge, or making things right?

he chooses this past life, to turn against his friends, to, for once in his life, try to make things right again.

shark has plenty of reasons to keep going now, and plenty of support. he’s no longer pushing people out and lashing out, and he’s choosing to believe in himself. his past has _become_ his present, whether he’d wanted it or not, and he’s choosing to accept that. and, in the end, i don’t think this is a bad thing, that this was the wrong decision to make. this was probably the better option to make, probably the healthier one, even if it puts shark and yuma in direct opposition. this is one of the few times in this series where this may have been the right choice. it is perhaps not the best decision for everyone, but it feels like the right decision for shark, or as right a decision as he could make given the circumstances.

the past is gone, but it’s never something that can be abandoned completely. it can blind you if you refuse to move on from it, but it can still inform your decisions even if you’re no longer stuck in it. the past is past, but that doesn’t mean it doesn’t mean anything whatsoever. people, events, things, they still matter. it’s the difference between being stuck in who you used to be and fighting for what’s truly important. and sometimes, the past comes up again into the present, and sometimes, it’s ugly, but it still needs to be dealt with. and perhaps, in this light, the choices are flipped.

yuma and his friends and shark’s current life are his past. the responsibilities, the title, the life waiting for him now are his present. and in this light, shark has chosen his present. because it’s not that yuma and his friends aren’t important to him. but shark can’t let that blind him, and he can’t stay stuck as who he used to be. this whole time, he’s been fighting for revenge, but revenge is never the right answer. at least, this way, he can do something to make up for that.

listen man shark’s one of the most important dang characters in this show and now that he’s made this choice, i don’t know where we’re going! i don’t know what’s gonna happen next! maybe i’m wrong and this’ll blow up in his face! but i’m excited to see where shark takes us next!


	3. Astral's Pettiness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> after astral learns that yuma hid vector being a barian from him he got real petty towards yuma for awhile and i talked about that for a good long while i guess
> 
> don't remember when specifically i wrote about this, where i was in zexal, but it seems like it was after chapter 1 of this.

astral’s become super petty in the wake of recent events. and i mean. astral already was pretty petty. we know this. we all know this. but his petty meter is just shooting right up there, he’s really getting in the good quips, and i’m living for it. i’m living for astral just opening his mouth and verbally destroying yuma with every word

in season two i believe we got less “astral points out that yuma sucks at both dueling and life in general, and it’s funny because it’s true” jokes (which are good jokes i live for them), but season 3 has gone back to making like half of astral’s dialogue digs at yuma’s expense and i’m all for it because a) yuma sucks at dueling and b) yuma absolutely deserves this shit after what happened. it’s not yuma’s fault! the bitch still deserves it though.

in the previous episode (put to the test part 1) we got this scene where the mythirian…..mythrian…… how are you supposed to spell it, fuck it, the _mythological numbers_ showed astral the legends associated with them, and that the barians were the humans associated with those legends, and astral was like “oh okay”. they walk up to the next _mythological number_ and kite’s like “yo my dragon wants to kick ass” and astral just kinda looks at him and goes “huh this must be mizar land.”, in the resulting conversation that i believe is along the lines of “astral what’re you talking about” (it’s been a very eventful few days since this interaction happened while i was half paying attention), astral eventually drops the line of basically, “oh yeah the barians used to be human”. we get the basic conversation of

astral: oh yeah the barians used to be human by the way  
shark: wait, what? why didn’t you tell us this sooner????  
astral: i am sorry about that shark

and like, yuma’s barely participating in the conversation, and astral’s speaking to everyone in general at first and then aims his next line at shark. but you can read this just, pointedness in it, of astral just being like “well if yuma’s gonna hide shit from me i can hide shit too, it’s not like i should trust him with the information anyway let’s be real” and just, you can’t convince me this isn’t a huge painful dig at yuma here. yuma of course never responds to it, but it’s just like, _shit_

i’m living for this man idk

and to go along with this more, astral’s loss of trust in yuma really shows in the little ways. he doesn’t show it in big, showy arguments, refusals to get along, anything like that, because a) that’d be very untrue to his emotions and b) there’s not time for that. even after what happened, astral cares a lot about yuma and his wellbeing (and of course yuma feels the same about astral), and they’re kinda at a race to the finish line here and they can’t afford to disagree or fight or not work together perfectly. that’s just not how any of this is gonna play out until astral inevitably corrupts himself again.

it’s the little things. astral’s jokes at yuma’s expense about his dueling ability come back in stronger force, when he was starting to lay off yuma a little and was genuinely complimenting yuma more. astral was becoming very hands off in yuma’s duels, trusting yuma to win and do well, and now he’s getting more hands on again, he doesn’t usually go full force “do this yuma” but has gone back to the general suggestion of “play this kind of card, like, play a spell card” and yuma’s able to follow along with it. astral and yuma haven’t had the time to address this now, and needed more time to heal before they dealt with this before, and they might even need more time now anyway. they barely discuss it, even in their own thoughts they barely think about it. but that doesn’t mean they’ve just brushed it off and forgotten about it, it’s super clear this is a thing and it’s present on both their minds.

after all, yuma doesn’t protest much about astral’s suggestions and ideas these days


	4. Shark & Yuma & Astral - Not Friends

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> [MAQ-YGOFAN](https://maq-ygofan.tumblr.com/) ASKED:  
> TBF, Shark and Astral were more leaning on an acquaintance level than a "friend" level.
> 
> shout out to maq-ygofan on tumblr for indulging me on my analyzing zexal
> 
> looking more into shark's decision to side with the barians over yuma and the gang. i think this was written around the same time as the are we humans are we barians chapter. specifically relating to his relationship with yuma and astral. tori got mentioned here too so, uh, apologies for the tori bashing for any tori fans out there

i want to be clear that throughout this whole thing, i absolutely agree with you. you’re 100% right.

shark’s just probably one of my favorite topics in terms of zexal, and while astral will always be my number one, i’ll concede that shark is written better and really fun to analyze, perhaps moreso than astral, so the beast has been unleashed, oops, sorry again.

yeah, you’re right. when it comes to discussing friendship, i’m used to thinking of it in like, jaden yuki terms, yuma terms, sora from kingdom hearts terms, because outside the context of series like yugioh and kingdom hearts where friendship is so important and core to the series, it’s not something i think about or discuss much. so when it does come up, i automatically switch to the mindsets of characters like that. and from yuma’s point of view, i feel like yuma would probably consider astral and shark to be friends with each other. and yugioh does have a tendency to refer to most positive relationships as friendships without often considering other parts of that spectrum; acquaintanceship, and often significant others outside the like, rushed and poorly written straight relationships they try to force at times. usually everyone is a friend, a best friend, a rival, or an enemy. realistically, if i were astral, i wouldn’t consider shark a friend, it’d be more a co-worker like relationship or like, person in my class(es) who i often see, i like them, but i don’t talk to them much outside the context of class/work, and don’t view them as a friend. personally, i’m very hesitant to think of people as my friends, because i don’t want to say someone’s my friend if they don’t think of me as a friend. i will usually only call someone my friend if they’ve called me a friend first in the past, or if we’ve known each other a very, very long time (in the context of my lifespan. if i’ve known you most of my life i will call you a friend). and if i were shark, this would mostly still hold, with an additional “yeah i know the naked blue glowing alien, no i don’t know why he’s like this”. (yeah, astral’s from another dimension and all and not really actually an alien, but it’s all in good fun). 

shark and astral really don’t interact much, both before and after shark regains his memories, makes his decisions, and reaches the point of no return (from his point of view anyway, there’s definitely a point of return here, but like hell is shark on his own going to like, you know). they acknowledge that the other exists, sure, but they never really like, talk all that much. their relationship was primarily based upon past rivalry and present necessity, shark was very much against yuma (and by extension, astral) before, but as things in heartland progressed, it became clear the situation was bigger than that, and when the barians struck before shark remembered anything, well, some part of him just really wanted to smack vector for some reason and astral was leading the charge on the “fuck vector” squad so shark dove in. after some time shark was able to see astral, but well, all their talk is just mostly business. there’s some trust there, sure, given that shark still has a number after the heartland scenario, but it’s not like shark is the only person astral trusts with that. they’re definitely acquaintances at best. i don’t usually refer to people as my acquaintances, so yeah, if we branch outside that term it’s more a classmate/co-worker relationship, but, yeah, acquaintances.

the thing is, though? that’s still so much progress and a huge jump from where we started out.

shark is one of the best executed pieces of the zexal puzzle, and i will die on that hill. here, ten episodes from the end, we know a lot about shark, and we can understand him and relate to him; everyone’s had to make a hard decision before, a lot of people have been in situations where certain decisions have put them against people they care about. knowing what we know about shark now, well, the line “yuma and astral are not my friends” might not feel like it holds so much weight towards astral, given how little they interact. with yuma, of course, it’s obvious. yuma has from the beginning insisted shark’s his friend, he constantly goes out of his way to try to help shark and be there for him (when no one else would), and shark starts doing the same back and it’s clear they care about each other, so of course that hits hard, of course that’s devastating for yuma to hear, even though he’ll fight that statement until his last breath because _of course_ shark’s his friend. shark and astral aren’t friends, that’s true on the part of shark. but in terms of shark denying the relationship he and astral have built, choosing to throw that out and ignore it, that’s still pretty significant, though i’d argue it’s perhaps more significant to astral than it is to shark, so it might hit astral a little harder than shark may think or intend for it to. so, for that purpose, it’s better to analyze shark’s statement more from astral’s point of view than shark’s, because their perceptions of each other aren’t the same, yuma and astral are our main point of view and gateway into the story, and while this is something shark said, astral is one of the people it’s directed at, so astral’s reactions and feelings on the manner are important.

shark’s between a rock and a hard place; serve the people he failed in the past and make up for his mistakes while turning against his current team, or stick with the people he’s been fighting with and for the whole time and fail those people once again. he’s failed so many people so many times from his point of view, it’s what he does best. it’s not just about the barians he failed, either, because he’s failed yuma and astral before too. maybe this time, he can do something right for someone for a change. astral’s set out to destroy the people he once served and fought for, so it’s easier for shark to turn against astral. astral has the people of his dimension and yuma, yes, but has no real reason to turn against shark before shark reveals his true nature. this is harder for astral than it is for shark, no doubt about it, but make no mistake, this is still very hard for shark.

in the present, astral regards shark well, and they may not be friends but astral appreciates shark nonetheless.

perhaps most obvious, is that shark’s been able to be there for yuma at times where astral hasn’t been able to, in ways that astral hasn’t been able to. and i’m sure astral is grateful for that, regards shark well for what he’s done for yuma in the past, positively speaking. shark’s one of yuma’s biggest support systems outside astral himself, and trey made it clear pretty early on that yuma’s support system, his confidence, his greatest strengths are all tied with his memories of his dad (this includes astral), and without those memories, well, yuma still needs something and someone to hold onto, you need support from more than one source (even if you yourself are one of your strongest supports that still counts; it’s clear that’s not necessarily the case for yuma) and shark’s done that better than anyone. and also perhaps most obvious, going back to again the situation with shark holding onto one of the numbers from astral after the whole heartland situation. and again, it’s not like shark’s the only one. look at the arclights. (byron come home) 

but then again, shark’s continued possession of one of the numbers connected to astral is more significant than with anyone else. the numbers have a strong influence that corrupts, and shark has fallen victim to it more than once. yuma is immune with astral and his key, the arclights have their crests, kite has his photon transformation, but shark had nothing. he seemed to resist the influence of numbers from just sheer willpower, without anyone really knowing why for awhile, and shark is the first person we see pulling off this resistance from just pure will. _astral_ sees this.

astral spends a long time in this series running on very limited memory, and he gathers knowledge of the world around him and what he thinks his purpose may have been based on observations and context clues. astral knew the numbers came from him, but he saw the numbers corrupting all these people. at least in the dub, he fears for a time this sort of corruption and destruction might be his purpose, or at least i specifically remember a point very early on where he fears he possibly was supposed to do this to yuma, take over yuma to fulfill whatever his purpose was supposed to be. he doesn’t want any of that, but the signs seem to point in that direction, and number 39 doesn’t help matters either. seeing shark resist the number, it probably felt like confirmation that hey, maybe these numbers aren’t all bad, outside the memories of astral’s they contain. maybe astral’s purpose isn’t….bad. and maybe astral had reached this point before then, maybe not, it’s been awhile. but even if astral had reached that conclusion, doubt, fear, and anxiety are cruel, and fuck does the confirmation and evidence supporting what you already know still feel good. the fact that shark could resist numbers (even though we didn’t know why) was probably very helpful and relieving for astral and his mental state, even if the show probably didn’t show it, zexal doesn’t always seem great about that, but like, in astral’s shoes, no way it wasn’t like that.

but these judgements are all based on the present. if we frame it like this, well, it probably seems like astral would almost be more devastated about shark denying his relationship with yuma, than about his relationshp between shark and himself. and astral might feel more strongly about that. shark and yuma had a stronger relationship, astral cares greatly about yuma. but we’ve focused enough on yuma, and we’ve focused enough on who shark and astral are now. let’s take a step into the past, because when it comes to any relationship, it’s important to see how it started out. this statement holds a lot more weight seeing how far astral and shark have come from the beginning.

we now know what drove shark in the beginning of the series, and why he did the things he did and said the things he said. shark’s parents were gone, his sister in the hospital. yuma’s parents were gone, too, but he had other people; a healthy sister he could talk to daily and who would converse back, his grandmother, his friends. shark was alone, he had no other family with him and anyone who tried to get close he pushed away. helping his sister is more important to him than anything, and once he lost that opportunity in the duel circuit, he lashed out, became the delinquent the situation portrayed him as. he’s a foil here to yuma obviously, similar situations putting on different paths and highlighting the best and worst of each as they become closer and closer friends, and if i can say anything about zexal, it actually really delivered well on this element. yugioh doesn’t always do this with its foil relationships (looking at you gx). but, well, we didn’t know that then. astral certainly didn’t know that then, he didn’t know anything, he’d just shown up. so here’s how things start out for astral.

astral wakes up without his memories in an unfamiliar world around unfamiliar people. the only thing familiar to him here seems to be dueling, which is an activity going on in the immediate area. he seems to be tied to this kid who isn’t really good at this, but the kid’s heart is in the right place. and this kid’s opponent is this other kid named shark. shark rolled up, stole this kid’s friend’s deck (which is unforgivable in yugioh), discovered yuma’s key was the most important thing to him, proceeded to destroy said important thing, and is now dueling yuma to try to take yuma’s deck as well. yuma’s dueling to get his friend’s deck back. yuma wins and then shark up and abandons dueling altogether (another unforgivable action in yugioh), joins a gang, and continues to cause mayhem and destruction.

this is the starting point of how astral sees shark.

at this point, astral and yuma barely have anything of a relationship, other than each being a source of annoyance for the other. but they don’t need to to see how this would affect astral’s opinion of shark. after these first few episodes, oh, i really didn’t care for yuma, no, didn’t like yuma all that much, but i _**hated** _shark. absolutely despised him, ignored reassurances that he would get better later on. it’s hard to get much lower in yugioh than a character who seeks out what’s important to you, then destroys it. discovering that shark’s relationship to his rings, which rio gave him, was similar to the relationship yuma had with his key did not make things better. it took me longer to come around on shark than it did for astral to. this was a strong first impression, and it sets up for an incredible character arc, but we didn’t have that then and neither did astral. if my dislike for yuma didn’t prevent me from feeling strongly about shark, then surely astral, with how few opinions about anything he had at the time, probably had some strong feelings about this, too. yuma sees the best in people, astral does not. to see shark as an untrustworthy character is an understatement. to see shark as someone who needs to be stopped, to go against, is an understatement. we barely know anything about shark and we’re already against him, as astral surely is.

for shark to be the intended leader of the barian force, who should be the main person astral has to defeat, well, perhaps we’ve come full circle here, though this certainly isn’t the case in reality because vector is, well, vector. but by this point we know a lot more about shark than he even knew about himself at first. now, we want to root for him. he’s become yuma’s friend, astral trusts him as a comrade, and astral’s trust doesn’t always come easy, especially when you’ve betrayed it in the past. just look at how astral reacted when yuma hid something from him, and how long it took for yuma to regain astral’s trust and confidence again. many of yuma’s friends are also astral’s friends at their own insistence; shark never insists upon it. shark is still probably one of the strongest relationships astral has, after yuma and yuma’s main friend group from school. 

when yuma and astral fell apart, it was yuma’s actions and astral’s reactions. with this, however, astral never started doing anything different. this was all shark, and astral barely has time to react. it’s shark’s actions and shark’s reactions. it’s gotta sting.

as for shark, well, he had absolutely no one at the start. he pushed out everyone who came close to him, and stuck to the people who wouldn’t cling back, but would just use him the same way he would use them. not really any firm basis for friendship. yuma’s the first true friend he’s had, at least in a long while, and at that point, yuma’s friendship comes packaged with at least something from astral. then, shark can see astral, too. and, well, if astral’s been supporting yuma and giving him advice in duels this whole time, and that advice helped yuma get to where he is now, well, astral can’t be that bad. shark’s relationship with astral isn’t much, but it’s more than what he gives most. he isn’t very attached to yuma’s other friends, even if he’d consider quattro a friend at this point it’s very strained and rocky, he barely talks to trey and chris, and he gets along with kite probably about as well as he gets along with astral. marin, dumon, of course they shoot way higher than astral when shark regains his memories (though of course he already had a better and stronger relationship with rio than astral to begin with), and he cares about alito and girag and mizar, too. shark has everyone he previously served, everyone that was sent to barian world, he has them now, too. but for a very long time, yuma was the best friend shark had outside rio, who was in the hospital for so long, and astral was probably one of the strongest relationships shark had then, too. if kite were there, instead of summoning bootleg crimson dragon on the moon, kite’s about on par with astral probably, and shark would probably denounce him, too. he doesn’t waste his breath on the obvious.

vector snarks to shark about his friends yuma and astral showing up to help, and shark is clear to shoot down the idea that they’re friends.

for yuma, that’s absolutely harsh. because they _were_ friends, yuma was one of the best friends shark had. they supported each other through rough times, drew strength from one another, fought together. 

for astral, well… saying that astral and shark were ever friends is a stretch, realistically. but for a long time, neither of them had much, and their relationship with each other was probably better and closer to friendship than either of them had with most other people, and the person who both aligned their paths and who became one of their closest friends was yuma. astral and shark weren’t friends, but it was better than nothing, for sure. astral regarded shark higher than most. shark saw astral as a capable comrade, and he doesn’t waste his time on people who aren’t worth it. shark probably helped astral more than we got to see. just having _anyone_ probably helped shark more than we got to see. they mean more to each other than most people do.

shark and astral aren’t friends, no, but shark’s denouncement of the relationship they’d had still weighs a lot.

and…..do i need to even say it about tori? haven’t i said it enough already? shouldn’t it be clear by now?

tori offers nothing, provides nothing, helps nothing, does nothing. she has no reason to be here, or anywhere at any point in this series, and finally, _finally_ someone in this show acknowledges by just, giving her what she deserves: nothing. no acknowledgement, just, completely ignoring her. shark gets me. thanks, shark.

shark doesn’t need to deny whatever relationship he has with tori because it’s basically nonexistent. everyone, including the audience and including tori herself, and probably vector too, probably would’ve been more shocked if shark felt the need to mention her and specify he’s not friends with her either, at all. that one’s basically a given. still, i found it absolutely hilarious, and it makes me smile. again. thanks, shark.

in conclusion, you’re absolutely right, i agree with you, and thank you. sorry i took so long to say literally anything and then proceeded to just circle around the point for like, an hour and a half


End file.
